


traveler

by cthulu_sun



Category: Green Creek Series - T.J. Klune
Genre: Alternate Universe, Character Death, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-08
Updated: 2018-08-08
Packaged: 2019-06-23 23:27:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15617364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cthulu_sun/pseuds/cthulu_sun
Summary: Gordo travels between worlds. Mark is destined to die in every one.





	traveler

_the in-between is blue when you stumble through the gate, blood-soaked and aching. thomas, sentinel uniform splashed with drying blue paint, catches you before you slam into the ground, and you lean into the comforting weight of him._

_you refuse to cry. (this is a lie; you simply ran out of tears a long time ago)._

_"what happened?" thomas asks, arms tight around your shoulders._

_"he's gone," you say. choke on the words._

_(he is gone, again, and you are blue, blue, blue)._

//

this is how it starts: you are six years old, and your father takes you traveling. the gate is a writhing mess of darkness, straining against heavy iron chains. a thing of nightmares. you close your eyes as your father pushes you through, and you open them to the grey of the in-between.

abel greets you. he is tall, large, and he stares at you with a universe hidden behind his eyes. he's strong. powerful. a speck of colour in a sea of grey.

"abel," your father says, waving. "he's a sentinel - guards the gate."

a boy stands behind abel, dressed in white. this is where you meet thomas for the first time; in an empty almost-world, with your father's hand on your back and a gate slowly closing behind you. he will be a sentinel, one day. (you will be his traveler).

//

your gate is different, to your father's. it looks like a doorway, with a rainbow of a door hanging wide open.

("it's going to hurt," your father tells you.

it does. it's excruciating, makes you want to rip yourself out of your skin).

the earth slips away, when you step through the door. something tugs at your limbs, pulling in different directions; you are in pieces, bleeding into empty space. you are eight years old and dying. you are a traveler, stuck in an endless void of nothing, you are a boy lost in grey, you are -

"gordo," thomas says, and you are whole in a place that exists and does not.

"I think I just died," you say, and he laughs.

"were you scared?" he teases. you're lying on your back on the ground, and he's sitting beside you, your father and abel nowhere in sight.

"no." it tastes like a lie. "nervous," you offer instead, and promptly throw up.

(all in all, your first traveling experience is something of a success).

//

_rico is sitting by the river; the tips of his fingers are stained blue. he doesn't look at you when you settle down next to him._

_"you should go home," he says. the words curl into blue smoke. home._

_(you haven't been home in years)._

_he points to the river. "clean, papi. I ain't touchin' you like that."_

_you look down at yourself. frown. "like what?"_

_he rolls his eyes. "with his fucking blood all over you."_

_you clean yourself up as best you can. (it feels like you've been washing his blood from your bones since you first met him. maybe you have). rico curls an arm around your waist. you stay like this for a long, silent, time._

_eventually the blue starts to fade. not completely, never completely, but the in-between starts to look grey again. you open a gate._

_"home?" rico asks, knowing the answer but trying anyway._

_"maybe," you reply, like you do every time._

_a hand on your shoulder stops you just as you're about to leave._

_"you'll find him," rico says quietly. quiet like thomas. "in the right one."_

_(and it's a lie, you_ know  _it's a lie because you've found him in so many, and they've all been wrong and you're tired, but_ god  _do you desperately want to believe him)._

//

out of all the worlds, you like the magic one the best.

it's where your grandpap lived, when he was alive. he'd take you into his workplace and teach you how to use magic, how to stitch pieces of broken flesh and bone together with the power of the earth.

you meet  _him_ for the first time in the magic world, too. people know about travelers, here, but even with your father's reputation following you like a persistent ghost he doesn't seem to recognise you.

(this is how it starts: you are eleven years old, and you desperately want to see the inside of marty's surgery. this is how it starts: there is a boy who is dying, and you convince yourself you can save him).

marty's surgery has magic seeping through the door and it tastes like lightning. you stand outside, trying to muster up the courage to walk in.

"hey!" a voice shouts from behind you.

you turn. meet a pair of blue eyes. (the threads that hold the universe together are at your fingertips). a pale, washed-out ghost of a boy is staring at you.

"you a patient?" he asks, voice like an ocean.

"no."

his eyebrows lift. "a healer?"

"sure?" you say. close enough to the truth. "but you can't tell anyone," you add quickly, because if your father hears about this you won't be allowed back.

"like a secret?" he sounds amused.

"yeah. something like that."

he takes your hand. leads you through the door. the magic is thicker, here, heavy and cloying. you reach out to it, untangle the knots you find within it.

"what the  _fuck_!" marty yells from the back of the room, limping towards the two of you. he squints.

"hi marty!" the boy next to you smiles, cute and beaming.

"mark. usual treatment?" marty asks, holding out a bottle filled with red liquid. "and you brought a troublemaker to mess with my magic. what's your name, boy?"

"gordo, sir," you tell him. adults are less likely to hurt you when you're polite.

marty hums, low in his throat. "donald's boy. looking for hands-on experience?"

you nod.

"tell you what, kid, you've got an eye for it. come down here when you can and I'll see what I can find."

(this is how it starts: there is a secret, or two, and a friendship that is made of them).

//

you spend your twelfth birthday in the magic world. thomas and elizabeth organise everything, and you end up feeling overwhelmed.

mark takes you somewhere quiet. sits with you and helps you remember how to breathe.

"close your eyes," he says, when you are calm.

"why?"

"trust me."

and you trust him, always, so you close your eyes.

"now hold out your hands."

you sigh, but let him position your hands. he drops a wooden object with sharp edges into them.

"okay, you can look."

it's a raven. a sloppily-carved, wooden raven, with uneven wings. it matches the anchor burned into your arm.

"do you like it?" he asks, shy and quiet.

"yes," you say, and his smile lights up his face.

(he is cursed, and he dies three weeks later. you sit by his grave and hold the raven so tight you bleed).

//

_you do not go home._

_(home reminds you too much of your mother the day she begged you to stay with blood dripping from her hands._

_"don't trust them," she'd said. "stay with me.")_

_you sit at his first grave, blueblueblue with guilt and ache and longing._

_"I'm sorry," you tell the wind._

_you're tired. the stars sing you lullabies, and you sleep._

//

there's another traveler who shares your in-between. his name is rico and he lives in thomas' world. the one with wolves.

(once, you came through the gate and a white wolf greeted you. it took a long time for you to recognise it as thomas).

rico knows you love a boy destined to die, and that he is in every world you visit. he comforts you after every funeral, shouts encouragement every time you try a new world.

"this is the one!" rico will yell, every single time.

(you have been to thirty worlds. he has died in every single one, because you are just a world-weary traveler, and cannot control fate).

there is a universe somewhere, that you dream of. in it there is you, and him, the both of you old and grey and you do not bury him with the weight of your regret. you do not watch his life slip through your fingers with all the fragility of a paper heart.

there is a universe where you can love him forever, and one day you will find it.

//

_days pass. you heal and soothe and comfort and try to forget the sound of his laugh and the rough of his hands and the blue in your soul._

_rico and thomas are talking by the gate when you decide to visit the in-between again._

_"gordo," thomas says, with all the force of a hurricane._

_"no," you say._

_"there's someone I want you to meet," he continues, and a gate opens. he stands, holds his out to you. "come with us. please."_

_rico pushes you from behind. you take thomas' hand, and together the three of you step through the gate._

_"I'm back, bitches!" rico shouts, face tilted towards the sky._

_you're not listening. there is a man standing in front of a house; he has blue eyes, and you are eleven years old with a secret clutched in your fist._

_thomas says: "this is my brother, mark."_

_it's him. alive. scarred but_ alive. 

_"you smell weird," mark says._

_"fuck you," you manage to spit out, but you can't quite hide smile tugging at the corners of your lips._

_mark smiles back, a little sheepish, but bright. radiant. beautiful. "no - it's nice," he admits. "like autumn. dirt and leaves and rain."_

(this is how it ends: you meet mark bennett, and you are lit up in green).


End file.
